A variety of velocity detection systems and techniques are known in the art. Law enforcement agencies commonly use velocity detection systems, for instance, to determine velocities of moving vehicles. Velocity detection systems known in the art utilize RADAR (Radio Detection and Ranging) or LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) to determine the velocity of an object in a short amount of time and to a degree of accuracy.
The current technology, including RADAR and LIDAR systems, emit radio waves, laser beams, and/or sound waves, which reflect off the moving vehicles back to the detection system where the velocities of the moving vehicles are subsequently determined. This method, however, requires the cooperation of targeted vehicles, meaning that the signal must be reflected back to the detection system from the vehicle to enable the calculation of the vehicle velocity. The signal that is transmitted to the moving objects by the detection system can be detected, deflected, and jammed, using signal detectors, deflectors, and jamming devices known in the art, making the vehicle a non-cooperating vehicle. Since the energy being transmitted to the object is targeted, RADAR/LIDAR detectors and jammers can alert the moving vehicle to or even destroy the RADAR/LIDAR velocity reading. As a result, drivers equipped with jamming technology and detectors adapted to the RADAR/LIDAR systems known the art can prevent the velocity of their vehicle from being detected. As such, the drivers may evade law enforcement officials and continue to drive at unsafe speeds, without fear of adverse legal consequences.
Velocity detection systems are known in the art that are based on optics, commonly employing a digital camera. Optical based systems cannot be detected or deflected. However, optical based systems currently known in the art rely on conditions that are only true for one location. In a particular example of an optical system know in the art, successive images are taken of a moving vehicle and related to a predetermined distance, thereby allowing the determination of the duration of time required for the vehicle to travel a specific distance. The vehicle's velocity can then be calculated. When the optical systems currently known in the art are moved to another location, the system must be reprogrammed to accommodate the new location. As such, these systems are not portable. Other optical systems are known that rely on multiple cameras to gain a sense of depth which can then be used to calculate velocity. Due to the design of these systems, they are also stationary and require complex computations.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is a method and apparatus that detects, calculates, and records the velocities of moving objects that is easily adaptable to plurality of settings, including, but not limited to moving objects equipped with detection and jamming devices.
However, in view of the prior art considered as a whole at the time the present invention was made, it was not obvious to those of ordinary skill in the pertinent art how the identified need could be fulfilled.